Historical Figures Mashup Lesson

Who doesn’t love a good mashup? From Madonna to Zombies, mashups are a way into pop culture and lead to big opportunities for creative expression.

In today’s free high school arts integration lesson, we’re using those mashups to help connect social studies, literature and media arts in a brand new way. Enter: historical figures!

One of the best things about this lesson are the discussions that happen. Be sure to give enough time for students to discuss their favorite mashup examples, talk about what makes a good (or bad) mashup, and how we use social media tools to help create and share these expressions. You might want to check out the book series History Mashups for Teens for some inspiration!

Another item to note is that this lesson explicitly addresses the new Media Arts standards. Students can use various social media tools to connect the points of view of historical, literary and artistic figures across the previous 3 centuries. This requires quite a bit of analysis, synthesis and creativity to do well.

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Susan Riley is the founder and President of EducationCloset.com. She focuses on teacher professional development in arts integration, Common Core State Standards, 21st century learning skills, and technology. She is also a published author and frequent presenter at national conferences on Arts Integration and Arts and the Common Core.

Susan holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from the prestigious Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ and a Master of Science in Education Administration from McDaniel College in Westminster, MD. She lives in Westminster, MD with her husband and daughter.